Subsurface safety valves are operated from the surface normally through control lines that run outside the production tubing. These valves are typically of the flapper type where a control system, when pressurized from the surface overcomes a closure spring on a flow tube to push the flapper 90 degrees into the open position behind the shifting flow tube. Removal of pressure from the control system allows the closure spring that had previously been held in a compressed position to then push the flow tube away from the flapper so that a torsion spring can bias it back against its seat to prevent flow from the formation from going up the production string.
These systems have to deal with issues such as failing in a safe mode if one or more seals in the control system fail. They also have to address offsetting the hydrostatic pressure in the control line. Systems with a single control line down to the subsurface safety valve typically have a pressurized chamber at the valve preset with enough pressure for the expected depth of the valve to offset the control line hydrostatic pressure so that on removal of applied control line pressure from the surface, the closure spring that acts on the flow tube doesn't have to overcome the hydrostatic pressure from the control line. A single control line system that addresses fail safe failure modes of the various seals is U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,351. Alternatively a closure spring is provided that is strong enough to overcome the control line hydrostatic pressure particularly in shallower wells. Other systems simply cancel out control line hydrostatic pressure with a balance line from the opposite side of an operating piston than the main control line. One example of such systems is U.S. Pat. No. 6,173,785. Some two line systems also incorporate pressurized chambers such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,427,778.
Some of these designs employ a passage through the piston for the purpose of obtaining a fail safe closure mode if one or more of the system seals malfunction or if a control line is sheared. The prior systems typically separated tubing pressure from control line pressure and made no reference to the surrounding annulus. Typically the operating piston in the control system had to have a mechanical connection to the flow tube to move the flow tube to open the valve. That mechanical connection was exposed to tubing pressure and the operating piston featured a pair of seals in a housing so that a portion of the operating piston in the region that it connected to the flow tube was exposed to tubing pressure but remained in pressure balance from tubing pressure.
The present invention addresses alternative approaches to the past designs that reference the surrounding annulus. Some embodiments operate differently than others during failure modes and this will be explained in detail when the various embodiments are described in detail. Those skilled in the art will appreciate the various aspects of the invention from the description of the preferred embodiment and associated drawings that appear below with the understanding that the full scope of the invention is measured by the appended claims.